There was a lot of
excitement in town this morning and I think our fellow travelers were just as
excited. Last night was brutally cold
but we were warm in bed as long as we didn’t expose skin to the air. Melanie and I both had on our thermal
underwear and an extra shirt. We alos had
wool socks on and slept in a thermal liner inside a three-season sleeping
bag. We had some wool blankets piled on
top of the bag. We wore knit caps pulled
down over our ears and eyes and had buffs around our necks. My nose was cold but I made sure not to need
to use the toilet!
After
breakfast, we wandered into the village up to the town hall where the clinic
will be held. There were already dozens
of people waiting for us, from children to the elderly and they all wanted to
talk to us. My Tibetan isn’t that good
to understand though. “Julley” is still
the only vocabulary that I know. Once
the doctor arrived, we went in to set up.
Lots of medicine needed to be sorted and stacked, the doctor’s gear
needed to be laid out, furniture had to be moved around, eye charts needed to
be hung and the sunglasses needed to be sorted through and organized on the
table.
We had about
250 pairs of sunglasses, mostly donated by ABN-AMRO and Baker & McKenzie
staff. Our former colleagues came
through for us when we asked for donations.
One of the biggest problems for the nomads in this high desert area are
caused by the lack of proper protection for their eyes. Sand and dust easily gets in their eyes and
causes infections. The atmosphere lacks
ozone protection and the bright u/v light cause cataracts. The nomads have nothing so the donated used
sunglasses help a lot. The doctor also
brought a lot of the Sherpa-style sun-goggles but these are given to the people
with the worst problems and highest risk.
It turns out that the younger kids, for some reason, prefer Ray-Bans and
Oakleys anyway.
The doctor
organized everything to be very efficient.
Our “patients” queued outside very orderly and patiently. When they reached the front of the queue, Melanie
asked them to read the eye chart and their results were documented. Apparently this was the best job because of
two reasons. First, everyone in the town
who was not in the queue crowded around to laugh hysterically whenever anyone
reading the chart made a mistake.
Second, you might be surprised just how many Ladakhi and Tibetan nomads
do not know their Western letters and numbers or speak English. They would have their readings translated to
our volunteers as “letter that looks like a snake” and “do-not-enter letter”. This is the most fun the town has in a
year. Inside, I got to organize everyone
into the spots on the floor where they could sit and see the doctor on a
first-come, first-served basis. I didn’t
want to make a queue where every time someone saw the doctor, everyone got up and
moved. Instead, I just had them sit in
spots in orderly rows and pointed out who was next when their time came. This simple method allowed me more time to
help the elderly stand up and sit on the floor because only one person was
moving at a time. Other volunteers were
assisting the doctor with documenting his work, handing out the prescription
medicine, handing out the sunglasses, etc.
I understand that we had about 120 patients today. Good job doctor!
BTW, I would
also have said “Good job Khandro-la” too but I am worried. We opened the clinic a little after the
posted schedule time because we wanted everything ready before seeing the first
patients. It was disappointing to be
late but it took us longer than we planned to get ready. The mayor only opened the door to the room
for us about 15 minutes before the scheduled start too. The worrying part was that Khandro-la showed
up a good hour after the clinic started and she was furious. Who said that we could open the clinic
without her blessing, she demanded to know?
In front of the whole town she gave a dressing down to the doctor and
all of us. This was HER clinic and we
disrespected her. Aiyoh!! Anyway, she then turned to “her people” (the
townsfolk) and said some prayers, made an announcement about how great she was
and then gave us permission to proceed after changing around the setup of the
room, assignments of who would do what, some of the systems we had in place
and, most of all, she made sure that she was in charge of handing out the
sunglasses. What an ego! Oops!
Careful of your Western bias, Michael!
This
morning, while I was trying to take an ice-trickle shower, Melanie had a nice
chat with the woman who runs the camp.
The woman was every bit as bundled up as we were against the cold summer
day. Remember that this area is only
accessible about three months per year because of the snow on the passes to
reach the summer pastures. Melanie
explained to her that we lived in Singapore where it was hot year round. The woman looked confused. Hot ALL year?
Yes. ALL year? Yes.
No snow?!?!?! Wow, not only “no
snow” but in 22 years of living in Singapore, for weather reasons, I have yet
to need to wear any anything with long sleeves or long pants. The woman just could not conceive of such a
place existing on earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment